Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 7/11/06

Red cards or Academy Awards?

By, Cozmic

Any soccer-tournament automatically brings up the attention of most actors spotting the competition, but the 2006 World Cup has taken it a bit too far. Not only has this year's world cup brought us the most yellow cards handed out in a tournament (the match between Holland-Portugal being a very large contributor), it has also brought up the most amount of Academy Award nominations since some really boring movie nobody really wanted to watch. Now, the reason for this is of course obvious: everyone needs the judge to feel pity for them, right up to the point where you're about to be carried away from the game, when you make a miraculous recovery. This way, you can hopefully get a few warning on the opposing kicks and if you're convincing enough the ever important penalty kicks.
However, this has been taken to the extreme lately, with the Portugese Ronaldo faking his own death and resurrection, trying to be able to drop one of his names and thus become yet another one of those divas who can act, but refuse to leave someone who knows teamplay to score. However, he did have a hard time convincing the audience that that nudge on the elbow could cause his head to explode and grow back again as he was being carried off the field, but the special effects were very impressive. His personal acting, however, needed some improvement, causing a five minute long scolding from coach "Big Phil".

Far more impressive then, are the usual, simple, falling over and grabbing your ankle and screaming in pain because somebody tackled you and that fall really wouldn't be enough unless you emphasized it type of deals, perfected over decades of learning how to get that one free kick. These are however often overlooked by the Academy, who find them to be too realistic, and thus not convincing acting. Debate over whether players should be outraged or proud over this is raging all over the soccer-world, while a lot of players at the same time refuse to admit that they're faking it. Because, really, everyone flies off like that once he trips, and then rolls for ten feet, lies, whines a bit, and then goes up and gets a drink of water, there's nothing faked about it.

Another, often overlooked, case of acting on the field is the usual feelings of cramped muscles, often when there's a little time left on the clock and your team is only up by a single goal. These are even easier than the nudgings, simply requiring a player to drop on the ground, whine a bit and blame his legs. Tadaa, a few minutes later, he's up. As usual, however, these often do not attract the attention of the Academy, something more and more players have been aspiring to win.

Obviously this is something that cannot bring any good with it, but nevertheless, it is happening. All we can hope for is that nobody ever gets away with grabbing his face and rolling in pain after getting the ball on his knee ever again, and that we see some real injuries on the people who deserve it. Or just some more red cards for unsportsmanlike conduct.